NEW DELHI: Law Minister Kiren Rijiju has disclosed in the Rajya Sabha that the Supreme Court did not have any pending cases that are older than 50 years.
The High Courts, however, had as many as 1,514 civil and criminal cases pending that were 50 years old, he said in reply to Congress member Rajmani Patel's question.
Citing the data from the National Judicial Data Grid, he aid there were 1390 cases in the local courts that ere older than 50 years.
Calcutta HC has maximum pending cases
Across different states, the Calcutta High Court recorded the maximum pending cases, with as many as 1,192 civil cases pending for more than half a century.
Orrisa recorded the least number of pending cases, with only one civil case that was over 50 years old.
“The disposal of pending cases in courts lies within the domain of the judiciary and the central government has no role in the matter,’’ said Rijiju.
The maximum number of 50-year-old cases in the lower courts, were in the states of Uttar Pradesh (572), Bihar (284) and Bengal (273), the government data stated.
Indian courts have often had vacancies
A law commission report in 2009 said that it will require 464 years to clear the backlog with the present strength of judges.
Despite sanctioned strength of judges, courts in India have often not worked at full capacity due to vacancies of judges.
Have urged courts to expedite process of clearing pending cases: Rijiju
In 2022, the working strength of judges in India was 14.4 judges per million population. It has changed marginally from 13.2 in 2016.
Rijiju said the Supreme Court has urged the high courts and lower courts to accelerate the clearing process in a time-bound manner. They added that the Supreme Court had cautioned the high court of using its authority sparingly, while staying the investigation or trial in any criminal cases.
“Once such power has been exercised, the high courts should not lose sight of the case where they have exercised their extraordinary power of staying investigation and trial,” the SC order had stated.
